The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk PARKING BRAKE ISSUE

Hi...
My truck is a 1953 1/2 ton with a parking brake that is activated by a foot pedal.
When I depress the foot pedal it only goes down about 3" and then springs back 2", leaving the pedal only holding down 1" which does not fully engage the parking brakes in the rear wheel.
I have adjusted the cables at the clevis pin as much as I can....the foot pedal has a very large spring that the pedal shaft goes thru....it was installed by the previous owner.
Could that spring be too heavy so it does not allow the pedal to go lower toward the floor ?
Is one inch enough compression of the floor pedal enough to activate the parking brake ?
Are there any other adjustments to check for to get this to work ?
Thanks,J

I know of no spring which goes on the pedal shaft. Can you post some pictures? You may have a candidate for the "P.O. Modification Fail Hall of Shame".
Carl

Hi Carl...I am not sure how to post a picture but I will try....J

Look at the lower left of this page.

J, sometimes you have to take the whole thing apart on the inside of the truck and were the foot pedal shaft goes thru the arm that holds the shaft down the hole on the arm needs to have the edges of the hole sharpened so that it can bite into the shaft.There is a spring between the floor of the truck and that arm that's what forces the arm to grab the shaft.


Pete

woke up thinking about if I remove the large 6" spring and then what would make the pedal spring back....NOW I KNOW.......thanks, I will let you know how I make out.........John

OK...removed the Large spring and cut off about 1 1/2 " and used that 1 1/2" of spring between the release rod and floorboard....
Also...removed the pedal rod and sharpened the bevelled hole best I could with a hand file.....that rod is hard as a rock.

Brake pedal now catches lower and the hand brake works.

****the only problem i am having now is that the release rod does not release 100% and I have to pull it up with the edge of my shoe when seated in the truck.
I suspect that perhaps I should have cut that heavy spring 2" instead of the 1 1/2" I now have....
Can anyone tell me the length of the spring that the vendors sell ???

Also if I have to take that pedal rod off again I would like to know what is the best method to sharpen up that bevelled hole ????


thanks,John

OK...I seemed to have cured my problem with the parking brake release rod not holding the foot pedal in place to secure the parking brake.
For starters I removed a large 5" spring the PO has installed on thepedal rod in order to get the pedal to spring back upwards to release the parking brake.
After removing the spring I cut off 1 1/2 " to place between the release pull rod and the truck floor.
Then I sharpened the hole in the pedal rod a wee bit but that metal was too tempered to really make a big change.
After doing all that the parking brake was better but not really good.
The thing that really solved the problem was making a sharper bend in the release rod with the hole in it as doing that increased the angle of the hole so that the pedal rod would hold.
So for the present time the parking brake works good.
Thanks to everyone for all the help and suggestions.....regards, John